Volbeat

Danish rock band, Volbeat, utilised virtual sets and IMAG effects for a tour with the band Ghost, European festivals and a headlining arena in Europe.

The goal was to not distract from the band’s performance but instead simply set the stage for them to do their thing. To achieve this, IMAG was pushed to the upstage video wall and was edited by various Notch effects. These effects tie into the onstage scenes, such as a strobe jail scene for the new single, “Shotgun Blues” and a “Super8” film look playing over a theatre scene for the Johnny Cash inspired song “Sad Man’s Tongue”.

 In years past, the band used a clean IMAG feed out to screens, so to revive things now live production is back in full swing, artists were allowed to experiment with effects. Relying on IMAGs as a concept, the final result saw an emphasis on the band’s visuals, bringing a new level of cohesiveness to the video production. 

Before the tour, different IMAG looks and 3D Notch scenes were combined to refine the show’s look and present to the band in renderings along with the lighting and stage design. Once on-site, programming was worked on through the set from top to bottom, starting from the base pre-programming and building out the songs. Utilising real-time work in Notch, the team went through 100’s of variations of different songs, really exploring a lot of options on a 15-17 song set, and still only needed ten days from the start of building the set to show one.

“We quickly designed a variety of 3D scenes and IMAG looks that make up the show, with virtual lighting cues for added flare. The show doesn’t run to timecode so having a live operator run various cues based on parameters opened up in Notch means we have more control over the video elements should the band extend their solos. Because of this, the band isn’t locked to video, which was a goal I had in the beginning.”

Shelby Carol Cude, Video Director and Designer.

Additional press coverage:
Broadway World

Credits
Client: Volbeat
Production Design: Guy Sykes, Niller Bjerregaard
Creative Direction: Guy Sykes, Niller Bjerregaard, Shelby Cude
Notch Designer: Alec Spear
Video Director: Shelby Cude
Video Producers: Shelby Cude, Alec Spear, Niller Bjerregaard

Lighting Designer: Niller Bjerregaard
Screen Producer: Wade Mannes
Server Operator: Jean-Luc Williams (Flying Saucer)
Animator: Alec Spear, Katja Forup
Illustrator: Karsten Sand
Video Vendor: LMG
Photographer: Britt Bowman